Chancellor Olaf Scholz gives a statement during exercise Air Defender 2023 at Jagel Airfield, Germany, June 16, 2023 - public domain image
After the end of the “traffic light” coalition: Strengthen the forces of peace!
The German Communist Party (DKP) will not mourn the broken coalition of Social Democrat Party (SPD), Green Party and Free Democratic Party (FDP).
The coalition was a government of war. It carried out its policy of military armament and economic war at the expense of the vast majority of the population. It actively curtailed freedom of expression and rolled back democratic and social achievements, thus advancing the shift to the right.
The coalition did not fail because of disagreements over whether to continue and further escalate NATO's proxy war against Russia. There was consensus on this as well as on the obviously limitless support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The SPD, the Green Party and the FDP have worked together to make our country “fit for war” again. They have only failed because of their inability to set up the necessary war economy and to pass another war budget that corresponds to the common militaristic agenda.
This became clear not least in the statement made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) yesterday on the dismissal of Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), in which he again demanded more money to continue the war in Ukraine, thereby twisting the facts. A sign of his government's loss of reality was Scholz's statement that he was not prepared to “finance support for Ukraine and investment in our defense at the expense of social cohesion”. As if we have not been paying for almost three years with rising prices for energy and food, with decaying infrastructure and with cuts in education, in the social sector and many other fields for the wars and economic wars that his government has pushed forward in the best agreement. These policies also accept the tens of thousands of job cuts that have been announced, currently in the automotive and supplier industries.
In the coming months, it will be about war and peace. Other forces are already in the starting blocks to finish what the SPD has started. First and foremost, the Christian Democrat Union (CDU), which – like the FDP last night – continues to call for Taurus deliveries to Ukraine. There is no doubt that Friedrich Merz considers himself a better chancellor of war. He will increasingly focus on social cuts to finance the arms build-up. The CDU shares this basic idea with the Alternative for Germany (AfD), even though the latter is still pursuing a different strategy in the Ukraine war, one that does not involve arms deliveries. The Green Party and FDP will continue to be found in the camp of warmongers. And, of course, the SPD, although it is already clear that Scholz intends to present himself as a “peace chancellor” in the Bundestag election campaign. Yet it was he who repeatedly crossed the self-imposed “red lines” in order to extend the war.
We are faced with the task of strengthening the forces for peace and organizing resistance against the course of war and crisis, which is backed by a grand coalition of bourgeois parties, media and think tanks. The DKP will take on this task as part of the peace movement, but also within the workers' and trade union movement. Because the question of “war financing and economic warfare or jobs, better wages and working conditions?” will play a decisive role not only in the federal election, but also in the current and upcoming collective bargaining struggles – especially in the public sector – and in the struggles against job cuts.
Essen, November 7, 2024
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